Mass Effect 1 has better combat.

I recently completed in epic play through of ME1. This game is so good. Aside from having better side missions, hub worlds, and all around better squadmate interaction than all the other games, I also have decided that I prefer ME1 combat at least to ME2.

This can be a hard argument to sell, since most people claim ME1 is weak ONLY in combat, but hear me out.

In ME, I'm always thinking, I would be instantly dead if any of these goons decided to rush me (their shields and firepower are twice what I have). I always saw that as a weakness that makes the battlefield feel less alive. In ME1, however, if your enemies think that they can pull it off, rushing you is exactly what they do. Especially those damn biotics. You could consider this frustrating, but I don't because it makes fighting so much more unpredictable and exhilarating than the "take cover in one place for the next 5 minutes and shoot at the bad guys" approach of ME2.

Another thing that makes ME1's combat better in my eyes is enemy powers. In ME1, if I saw an Asari commando, I'm like oh damn, I'm toast. Asari commandos rush you and use there biotics relentlessly. In ME2, even on insanity, I don't even think twice when I see those guys. Its just: shoot them from a distance as they walk towards you out of cover, all slow while they fire their useless shotgun from long range. The worst part is the only biotics that effect you in ME2 is some stupid ass egg attack from SMB2 that takes down your shields. In ME1, biotics make you weightless and helpless. So you actually take them seriously. Then of course there is the fact that in ME1, you aren't the only one that regenerates health, or uses immunity, makes weapons overheat etc.

What you mean is that certain aspects of Mass Effect's combat are more enjoyable than those in its successor. I could counter your argument by pointing out that I can simply equip my pistol with infinite fire mods, bring tank companions, and run around holding my fire button with no regard for my own safety and everything will die. Biotics break the game, squadmate AI is hilarious, customization is an obscenely broad pool with little depth, and then there's the Mako which, while being fun in the most carefree and childish of manners, is just awful.

There's tons of things I like about Mass Effect's combat but, the way I see it, that machine is just cute and broken.

Its funny you mention squadmate Ai, because I literally had no problem with it in ME1. As soon as I start playing ME2, they are dumb as shit to the point that it actually makes me mad. Climbing over cover to avoid enemy fire is a good idea, but then they climb right back over and stand on top of it... I order them to cover and they take forever to cover a short distance and usually die on their way. Its ridiculous. If I would describe any squadmate Ai as hilarious, it would be ME2.

Most people take issue with squadmates perpetually trying to gun down walls with enemies behind them or jumping in front of your line of sight every five seconds. At least Mass Effect 2's squadmates had the decency to duck.

Squadmates in that game died more often because positioning was key whereas one could just run around the first game not giving a single fuck about what they were doing because enemies would die at your whim or get stuck behind boxes until you were tired of being stuck in combat and had to hunt them all down.

In ME1, my squadmates always had a habit of zigzagging in and out of my line of fire, especially Wrex.

I also didn't like power wheel pausing. Being able to freeze time felt disengaging and kind of cheating. Just for kicks, on my infiltrator playthrough, I used to just run up to enemies, power wheel pause, aim, and fire my sniper rifle point-blank.

Most people take issue with squadmates perpetually trying to gun down walls with enemies behind them or jumping in front of your line of sight every five seconds. At least Mass Effect 2's squadmates had the decency to duck.

Squadmates in that game died more often because positioning was key whereas one could just run around the first game not giving a single fuck about what they were doing because enemies would die at your whim or get stuck behind boxes until you were tired of being stuck in combat and had to hunt them all down.

Click to expand...

I have never experienced enemies "dying at my whim." I found ME1 challenging for the most part. Yes I had 2 or three issues with squaddies in my line of fire, and them trying to shoot through walls. The thing is, I prefer that over them completely ignoring commands, charging enemies, standing in the line of fire after I repeatedly ordered the somewhere else, and generally getting killed constantly.

I also miss finding new and powerful guns, armor, and mods. But I guess that's a different issue.

ME1' s combat was more annoying and frustrating, not hard. ME2 isn't even too hard but at least there's some variety with the different classes to make the experience more varied between playthroughs.

no way in he'll me1 has the best combat. a shotgun on if with the acidic rounds and barrier was enough to run around destroying everything in sight. I only ever died when I'd accidentally a mako. I only played on casual to avoid suffering the combat.

Ah, ME1 combat. It wasn't hard for me once I got the hang of it & now it's pretty easy. I remember first time I played I HATED those freaking hopping Geth. Now I kind of miss them. I also missed the Armatures & Colossus'. You would think Rannoch would've been covered with them. Seeing as they were trying to protect the Reaper signal and all. But I honestly get nostalgic for ME1 & then I play it & that goes out the window. I prefer the ME2 & ME3 combat. But I do still like the story of 1 better & the overall scale of the hub worlds compared to ME2 & ME3. The scale of the worlds from 1 with the detailing from 2 & 3 would = perfection.

What I miss most about Mass Effect's combat was its presentation. Combat was more of an adventure rather than just... gameplay. In the first game I explored the frozen wastelands outside Noveria, cutting through pockets of Matriarch Benezia's Geth entourage to unravel the mystery of what happened at Peak 15. In the second a bunch of assholes wearing matching armor in an area full of chest-high walls are shooting at me and I have to kill them to see the next cutscene.

It changed from being a worldly adventure to action-packed, cinematic experience.

no way in he'll me1 has the best combat. a shotgun on if with the acidic rounds and barrier was enough to run around destroying everything in sight...

...I only played on casual to avoid suffering the combat.

Click to expand...

Sorry, but I'ma have to call you out on that. Claiming it's too easy and then saying you only played on Casual? I'm not saying you're wrong or right; but that's just silly

Click to expand...

Or it could, I don't know, mean that I've played on the other difficulty settings and found the combat to not be any harder, just takes more time (and therefore more agonizing). Therefore, I only play on Casual to avoid suffering the combat any longer, because I don't care how fun the prospect of running around a room shottying everything that moves, it's not fun at all the way ME1 does it and the powers are useless besides Insanity (and I do NOT dare allow my ME1 combat experience to last that long given shields and such, screw that).

What I miss most about Mass Effect's combat was its presentation. Combat was more of an adventure rather than just... gameplay. In the first game I explored the frozen wastelands outside Noveria, cutting through pockets of Matriarch Benezia's Geth entourage to unravel the mystery of what happened at Peak 15. In the second a bunch of assholes wearing matching armor in an area full of chest-high walls are shooting at me and I have to kill them to see the next cutscene.

It changed from being a worldly adventure to action-packed, cinematic experience.

Click to expand...

I guess I sort of agree with this, but only in the main missions sense. Planet hubs of just rolling around the planet with the "Strategically set mountains" around the main mission just to make it take longer to get there was not good.

There was some fun though to say Noveria or Feros where in all the empty space there were side hallways into side rooms that had extra things to check for and that was nice, but for those missions (besides helpings Feros' colongy get back into order through water/food/power/daily geth killings) it felt intuitive and on a purposed path anyway. I play games searching every nook and cranny as it is, and doing what ME3 did ended up hiding things better than was ME1 did, as I found all those computers so quickly but to this day I'll find datapads or weapon mods that I had missed during the missions (like, despite being the 7th time that I've played through ME3, I finally found the Eviscerator on the Grissom Academy mission in the room to the left of the shield generators).

It did feel like there were more opportunities to explore In ME1 and it was nice to have the feeling of adventure of travelling and all for the illusion of longer missions (when in reality the combat areas in ME1 vs. ME2/ME3 are almost the exact same, but the travel time in ME1 to and from, along with forcing in civilian areas to chat it up with people make it much longer and to some point I don't know if I really want those areas to be so common in ME2/ME3 given the story for most of them you're not exploring a colony you're entering an area of combat already hot.

IDK, ME1 did some nice things, all for naught with the combat structure. It was unfortunate that for ME2 Bioware decided to do away with just as much of what they got right as the did with what needed to be fixed, but ME2 was still a fun experience. ME3 just fixed all of what ME2 had, and that was good, especially taking away 70% of the waist-high barrier in all the rooms and making it possible to still take damage from gunfire.

I miss geth hoppers, made the game feel more 3 dimensional, and the variety of geth made them feel more like an enigmatic evolving species rather then just differently coloured robots. The geth really lost a lot of their variety. However they did just create the new geth bombers, and Mass effect 3s multiplayer is surprisingly good.

I say -as far as weapons go- a combination of ME3 and 1 would be optimal. Take the idea of many styles of each gun type, and add in the ability to loot them regularly, rather than having a few set guns from the start. I for example enjoy using the single-shot assault weapons in ME3. So it would be nice to be able to find several different ones, and better versions of them like in ME1. It gives the guns the variety of 3, but the fun aspect of finding loot in 1. And obviously keep in the upgrade system. Maybe even take it a step further with actual stat upgrades for the weapons.

And for God's sake, make armor more than a random skin for your character! Whether they have small stat boosts or not, picking armor is largely just aesthetic. And allow customization of your party's equipment too, even if they are still limited to the weapons they're best with.

I did not mind the combat in ME1 but I still think ME2 and ME3 have better combat.

Click to expand...

This.

My main issue with the combat was how easy it is before the end. Once you get access to the SPECTRE guns, it's over. Any sense of balance I mean. With the right mods pistols/ARs/shotties were pretty much impossible to overheat. So you essentially became an infinite bullet hose with the most powerful guns in the game. You could "run the rest of the game" with any one single weapon you wanted at that point.

While the subsequent titles were never able to match ME1's story, scale(galaxy map/landable locations), or "sense of adventure", as someone else here put it, they definitely improved in the area of combat. No question. I still don't think ME1's combat was as bad as most though. However, it is inferior to it's successors imo.

After a while ME1 just lost its freshness for me yes there was big exploration and massive hubworlds but copy-paste interior environments was a chore. The hit detection was poopy, AI was erratic .. I could go on. But at least it had a great story to hold the game up until the end.

I did not mind the combat in ME1 but I still think ME2 and ME3 have better combat.

Click to expand...

This.

My main issue with the combat was how easy it is before the end. Once you get access to the SPECTRE guns, it's over. Any sense of balance I mean. With the right mods pistols/ARs/shotties were pretty much impossible to overheat. So you essentially became an infinite bullet hose with the most powerful guns in the game. You could "run the rest of the game" with any one single weapon you wanted at that point.

While the subsequent titles were never able to match ME1's story, scale(galaxy map/landable locations), or "sense of adventure", as someone else here put it, they definitely improved in the area of combat. No question. I still don't think ME1's combat was as bad as most though. However, it is inferior to it's successors imo.

Click to expand...

Agreed. I thought that ME1's combat and inventory management was OK, but not as good as the rest of the game. ME2 and ME3 were much better from a gameplay standpoint. It almost felt like playing GoW with a much bigger story.

In some aspects it may be better, such as the ammo system and how you can affect the layout with biotics, although I prefer to have a cover system, like in 2 and 3.
If they had the ME1 combat with the ME2/3 movement, I'd have been happy with that.

lol mass effect's combat was pretty horrible. I don't see how one could say ME's combat was better then ME 2; that's just how large the gap is, imo. And ME2 game play isn't even genre defining or anything like that. To each his own I guess...

lol mass effect's combat was pretty horrible. I don't see how one could say ME's combat was better then ME 2; that's just how large the gap is, imo. And ME2 game play isn't even genre defining or anything like that. To each his own I guess...

ME1's combat wasn't that bad. It's honestly not really much different (other than the perspective) from Borderlands, and everyone loves those games to death. I still prefer ME2 and 3's combat (though nearly everything else in ME1 is better than its successors), if only because enemies in games like ME1 and ME2 are too bullet sponge-y.

And even though I'm a hardcore J-RPG fanatic, I absolutely hate it when stats dictate the battle outcome. Skill based combat is much more free and gratifying to tackle. When things are too far based on stats, you end up being forced to grind and simply beat your head against the wall to win. That's not fun, it's one dimensional and boring. I like to feel that I as a player am getting better, not simply that my stats grew because I wasted hours grinding.